MAC STUDIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[monkey man]

I'll try not to drool.

Don't worry about it Jimbo; you've got a cleanup expert in the house after all.

[HCMarkus]

Working my way thru plugins on the Mc Studio, I had no luck with Altiverb, Ivory and the Boz Digital Labs Clamp, Stomp and Snap plugins. Everything else, Native or not, worked fine off the bat.

I reached out to Audio ease at about 2:30 AM. I guess my timing was good, 'cause Aram got back to me almost immediately. After some initial; failed troubleshooting, he recommended this:

- restart the mac (o yes)
- then go to the applications folder, locate your DP app, hit get info in the finder and tick the box for the option 'open using Rosetta'
- now run DP, try to use Altiverb, if it works, quit DP
- then go to the applications folder again, and now turn off (deselect) the option for DP to 'open using Rosetta'.
- run DP again, Altiverb should still work.

Best regards,

Aram Verwoest
Audio Ease support
support@audioease.com

Worked great, and also fixed Ivory (which failed to pass inspection when DP was running AS-Native). Unfortunately, the Boz Labs VIs didn't;t fare so well. I alerted them to the issue.

Pretty sure this approach has been mentioned here on MOTUNation before, but I figured a reminder wouldn't hurt. Everyone's input has been, and continues to be, appreciated. I did note that DP starts up MUCH more slowly running under Rosetta than when running AS-Native, where it is super quick.

I ran into a Permissions Issue with Omnisphere, maybe because I just copied the libraries to a new drive (as Mike has warned against), but I was able to get things rolling by granting permissions in the "get info" panel for the data drive.

Running Black Magic Speed Test on the 970 EVO Plus in the Envoy Case reveals speeds pretty much as promised by OWC:

Write: 1140 MB/s
Read 1561 MB/s

Leaves SATA SSDs in the dust, but... Compare to internal SSD (2TB):

Write: (Ranges from) about 3500 to 6371 MB/s
Read: 5322 MB/s

Now THAT's fast!

[dix]

- restart the mac (o yes)
- then go to the applications folder, locate your DP app, hit get info in the finder and tick the box for the option 'open using Rosetta'
- now run DP, try to use Altiverb, if it works, quit DP
- then go to the applications folder again, and now turn off (deselect) the option for DP to 'open using Rosetta'.
- run DP again, Altiverb should still work.

Best regards,

Aram Verwoest
Audio Ease support
support@audioease.com

Worked great, and also fixed Ivory (which failed to pass inspection when DP was running AS-Native). Unfortunately, the Boz Labs VIs didn't;t fare so well. I alerted them to the issue.

Pretty sure this approach has been mentioned here on MOTUNation before, but I figured a reminder wouldn't hurt. Everyone's input has been, and continues to be, appreciated. I did note that DP starts up MUCH more slowly running under Rosetta than when running AS-Native, where it is super quick.

MOTU should make these steps SOP for DP users migrating to an AS Mac. Perhaps a Sticky? I limped around for weeks without the use of several key plugins, including Ivory and SoundToys, before someone in the MotuGuru group suggested doing this. ...the newest version of SoundToys are now UB btw, in case anyone missed it.

[HCMarkus]

Today's Update:

(The following may reek of rationalization)
Realizing the new machine might sped up my current workflow fast enough to make up for the time I spent setting the Mac Studio up, I have devoted a few more hours to the process, and things are going well.


Some tidbits...

PLUGINS
The Altiverb Fix I mentioned yesterday did not work on BFD3. BFD will run if DP is running under Rosetta, but crashes the audio system if instantiated under DP Native. The lack of support from BFD's new owner is concerning. Currently resisting the urge to buy Superior Drummer.

The old WIVI Instrument works!

iZotope RX5 crashed the installer, but still installed. It works stand alone or as a plugin.
Vinlyl installed and runs fine.

AudioModeling's V3 strings work great, but don't recognize V2 instantiations, so some hassle arises when loading projects using V2.

Basically, just about everything I've installed seems to work, Rosetta or Native.

DATA TRANSFER
All has gone well so far. DP10.13 Project files open without issue under DP11.04; I haven't hit any permissions snags despite having simply copied data to new drives.

As they should, Cheap USB3.1 Gen 2 external enclosures housing SATA SSDs are working nicely at about twice the rate those SSDs performed under the old Mac Pro's SATA2 interface. Photos SSD created under Mojave worked without issue once Apple Photos updated the file format. I copied my current project files from the old Mac Pro's NVMe drive to an internal SATA SSD, then put the SATA SSD in one of the aforementioned enclosures and ran a project file on the new Mac without issue. I'll be using that drive as a backup, so I copied the data to the Mac Studio's internal SSD (I created a Data Volume there to facilitate housekeeping) and ran projects from the internal SSD without issue. Load time is extremely quick!

At this point, I'm going to eat a little lunch, then transport the new Mac and all its peripherals out to the studio and see how she rips! The only issues that remain concern connecting my 828Es Interface and the Display Port send monitor. Fingers crossed.

[James Steele]

Today's Update:

(The following may reek of rationalization)...

Dude... I had to hang one of these on my monitor when I read this!



Seriously, you have good reason. I may have come into a little bit of money lately, but I will have some heavy rationalization lifting to do if I want to do something other than stash it for a rainy day.

Basically, just about everything I've installed seems to work, Rosetta or Native.

Great news!

...Cheap USB3.1 Gen 2 external enclosures housing SATA SSDs are working nicely at about twice the rate those SSDs performed under the old Mac Pro's SATA2 interface.

That's good to hear that it's working so well. I have a 1TB internal SSD in my MacPro I'm using for sample libraries that's nearly full and I'm considering buying a 2TB and copying it to that, then at some point moving it to one of those enclosures and keeping my sample library on an external drive. I know it's not as fast as it could be, but if it's as fast or even faster than it was on the internal SATA bus, that's fine by me for now.

At this point, I'm going to eat a little lunch, then transport the new Mac and all its peripherals out to the studio and see how she rips! The only issues that remain concern connecting my 828Es Interface and the Display Port send monitor. Fingers crossed.

Wishing you luck. This kind of movie is when I'm thankful for my plugs that use the iLok dongle. I'm thinking before I make the move, I'm going to need to take detailed inventory of my installed plugs and figure out which ones are disk authorized so I know which plugs I'll need to not only reinstall but reauthorize as well.

Can't wait to hear the reports. I think you got the M1 Ultra version, right? I think budget and prudence will limit me to the M1 Max version, but I'm hoping to afford to AT LEAST bump the RAM up to 64GB, and maybe go to 1TB on the boot drive. Or then again, maybe just run projects and sample libraries off of external SSDs. I haven't made a solid plan yet. But looking forward to learning from you, you trailblazer!

[HCMarkus]

(The following may reek of rationalization)...

Dude... I had to hang one of these on my monitor when I read this!

[mikehalloran]

…That's good to hear that it's working so well. I have a 1TB internal SSD in my MacPro I'm using for sample libraries that's nearly full and I'm considering buying a 2TB and copying it to that, then at some point moving it to one of those enclosures and keeping my sample library on an external drive. I know it's not as fast as it could be, but if it's as fast or even faster than it was on the internal SATA bus, that's fine by me for now.…

Ignoring PCIe cards that take NVMe blades for a moment.

eSATA/USB 3 docks for SATA III drives are cheap though not as plentiful as they used to be. Your bottleneck will be the SATA III drive — about the same as USB 3 if you have a USB 3 card already installed. These will actually be faster than the same SSDs connected to the internal SATA II bus on a 5.1. Unlike USB 3, eSATA supports TRIM — not really an issue unless your drives are pretty full, then it is since TRIM is much faster at preparing cells for new data.

If you don't mind doing a bit of wiring, there are PCIe cards with two internal SATA III ports plus two externals.

[James Steele]

I’m really not thinking of doing any wiring. I just want to be able to use the drives that I am using with my MacPro with a Mac Studio some day. It would be nice to have super fast speeds, but I’ve yet to encounter a situation where my system is bogged down by read/write speeds. Bigger problem is running out of CPU overhead for plug ins, and that’s where the Mac Studio interests me most. I can wait a few seconds for my VIs to load up when I first load a project.

[greg328]

James, you and I are in the same boat, I’m needing horsepower for my virtual instruments. Not so much concerned with disc read and write speeds.

I’m excited to hear user information regarding the max versus the ultra.. 10-core versus 20-core. I’d like to know if the 10-core sufficient for large projects using lots of virtual instruments, or if it bogs down.

One things for sure, my 5.1 MacPro is nearing the end of life, I need to get a machine that will handle the current OS- supported by Apple.

I’m waiting to pull the trigger because I understand there will be a summer announcement of a possible new Mac Pro.

More and more however, I’m understanding that I may not need PCI slots any longer, with all the available thunderbolt ports on the new machines. The only critical PCI card I currently have is my Universal audio Octo card. But I could sell that and just get a thunderbolt unit if need be. More $ to do so; I’ll need to compare the price differences between the current Mac Studios and the new Mac Pro, to see if the jump in price is financially sound.

[BobK]

So far I haven’t found any good Mac Studio music tests, but these show what less-powerful M1 machines can do:

Stress test of M1 Pro Macbook Pro - 96k recording: https://youtu.be/MYPDWlYUJ_I

Orchestral libraries in M1 Mac Mini with 16 GB of RAM: https://youtu.be/1armrkB4wFE

I don’t recall if the apps they used were optimized for Apple silicon (I think not, mostly) and, like with all stress tests, I take them with a grain of salt…

[HCMarkus]

The only critical PCI card I currently have is my Universal audio Octo card.

https://spark.uaudio.com

Note that UA indicates it will give you plugs you already own if they are on Spark...

I already own some of the UAD plug‑ins available in this subscription. Do I get access to the native version?
Yes. You get the native version of the plug-in for free. Download UA Connect to get started.

I don't use a lot of UA stuff, but I'd love to have ye olde LA-2A and 1176 models. My UA Duo card is stuck in my 5,1, where it will remain.

I'm actually typing this on my new Mac Studio Ultra, which has just been moved into the studio. Fortunately, I am able to keep both my displays connected to the 5,1 and the new machine simulatneously; Just happened to have the right video cables around. The inexpensive USB-C to Display Port Adaptor I got is working fine with the Mac Studio and my second display. At this point, all I need to do to be fully operational is get my 828ES going.

I'm gonna download the driver and install now.

[monkey man]

I'm actually typing this on my new Mac Studio Ultra, which has just been moved into the studio.

Rub it in won't ya Brother Sir Markus.

[HCMarkus]

I'm actually typing this on my new Mac Studio Ultra, which has just been moved into the studio.

Rub it in won't ya Brother Sir Markus.

Sorry Monkey. But the whole process has been pretty darn smooth. I'm excited... can you blame me?

Funny thing is, I don't even have to pull the old 5,1 out of the machine closet. The new Mac is so small, I've got it and all the drives on a small shelf. I have the Mac Studio placed with the rear side facing out so I can turn it on and access most of the ports easily. The two front TB ports (Thanks Ultra!) are working perfectly for 2nd Display and 828es connections; they shouldn't need to be messed with. To use the old Mac Pro, I have to swap a few USB cables, so no big deal when (if) I need it.

DP running thru 828es via Thunderbolt. Running Score, Movie and Recording at 64 Buffer. I think this just might work!

Time to alter my Signature...

[monkey man]

Awesome brother!

You know I was just ribbing you of course. Doesn't come off as "fun" in-print I'm afraid.

[HCMarkus]

Awesome brother!

You know I was just ribbing you of course. Doesn't come off as "fun" in-print I'm afraid.

Didn't take it as anything other than fun MM. No worries! I know your heart... its a good one.